“Just think, when we wake up tomorrow it could be a whole new world.”
“Will it be a good one, Daddy?”
“I hope so, kiddo. I hope so.”
mouse’s new neighbor
She grumbled and grumped her way back inside her winter den. It happened every year, why should she be surprised? No matter how neat she left it in spring, the courtyard was always littered with leaves and bit of moss come late fall. At least there weren’t any mushrooms this time. A dark thought seized and she shuddered. What if – what if there were salamanders living in the walls again? The mouse swallowed, clutching her broom tighter. Nothing scared her quite like salamanders. Except for dragons. Dragons would be worse.
A wind blew past and rustled the leaves in the courtyard, making her jump. Last week she’d been bragging about her den in the country, but her summer city apartment didn’t seem so bad now. At least in the city the human screams would warn a mouse if there were dragons or lizards. Even another mouse. Here she was on her own. Vulnerable, and probably delicious.
She took a deep breath. She could do this. Her country mouse had simply grown dull over the her summer in the city. Dragons weren’t common, after all. She’d be alright as long as she didn’t let her imagination get the better of her.
“Oh, hi!” came a sudden, booming voice.
She turned.
A great green dragon stood before her, smiling and waving over a batch of fresh-baked cookies. “I’m your new neighbor! Moved into yonder cave a week or so ago. It’s wonderful to finally meet you!”
a pirate’s sole regret
The retired pirate stared out to sea, contemplating the events of his life. He mulled over his nefarious deeds, his terrible doings, and his piratical offenses with pride. They were the hallmark of a well-spent pirate’s life.
He’d escaped the plank more than once, battled with a sea monster and won, and stolen a baker’s dozen ships from the King’s armada.
Still, he’d also been far too bold to ever lose his heart, never had any children, and a lifetime of mistrust and paranoia made it hard to make friends. This made for a lonesome retirement, but everyone knows a pirate is not meant to live long enough to retire.
A splash in the water caught his attention. He watched the waves, his nerves on end and his fright real. They would never let him forget why he’d been cast from the sea. His one regret, the one thing he never could escape, was the day he tried mermaid sushi.
the stork
“Sure,” the marabou stork said, rubbing his foot against his leg in anticipation. “I’ll deliver the baby for you.”
As the man walked away, an insidious cackle erupted from the stork. He’d always wanted a child of his own.
in view of trees
“Imagine what the view would be like if you cut down these trees.”
She smiled, she’d heard all this a dozen times before. “And here I thought the view was the trees.”
puddles of inspiration
“Puddles and mud and tiny bird footprints,
silt dusted leaves and ripples of sunlight.”
The poet felt his poetry muscles growing warm.
His daughter waited until he turned to dig out a pencil and paper before splashing through his inspiration in her red rubber boots. She smiled up at him as his eyebrows shot skywards. “You comin’ in?” she asked.
He could not deny the temptation. “Maybe I should write children’s books instead,” he said, and hopped right in.
beards of moss
The old man’s beard moss hung heavy on the trees. I almost didn’t recognize the forest at first. “What happened to you?” I asked.
The eldest tree sighed, his shoulders slumping under the weight of his regret, or maybe just the moss. “Don’t ever make fun of a wizard’s beard,” was all he would tell me.
the view from below
The little mushroom peeked around his big brother’s leg. “Is that it?”
“Yep. This is the Surface. It’s a weird place, lots of light and space, but most of it is empty because nobody likes leaving the ground. Kind of like us.”
The little mushroom sucked in his breath as a shadow flew over the sky. “What is that?”
“That’s a bird. They leave the ground whenever they like, and go soaring through all that empty space.”
“Someday I’m gonna do that,” said the little mushroom.
The eldest said nothing, hearing something in his little brother’s voice that made him think the boy might.
a creepy forest tale
The forest looked down the hill at the cabin. A curl of smoke wafted from the chimney.
“Legend has it,” said a sapling in a hushed voice, “that the human who lives there keeps a stack of CORPSES on his porch.”
The fir seedling listened, shivering with a delicious fear. “So that’s why there’s always ghosts coming out of the chimney!”
the village children’s project
Most people told them it would never work. The rest shook their heads and said nothing. “At least they are staying out of trouble,” was muttered thrice a day.
The kids ignored them and kept on working, testing ideas and calculating for every possibility. They carved grooves in the rocky surface to channel the wind and harness its power. They brought in soil to grow food on the top and in every crevice. The waves and the tides powered the engine.
When they were finished, the children invited everyone in the village to the launch. A handful of non-related adults showed: the type who liked to laugh at another person’s failure. They were disappointed.
The mammoth barge slipped into the sea, looking like any other cliff on the Bay. It puttered away under its own power, with a hundred cheering children on board, ready for adventure.
Jennifer Shelby 